File photo of the Lethbridge Airport. (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

Council approves Lethbridge Airport’s new business plan, facility to remain under city management

Aug 11, 2021 | 11:28 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The new four-year business plan for the Lethbridge Airport has been approved by City Council.

The 2021-2024 YQL Business Plan presented to council on Tuesday focuses on boosting passenger traffic and revenue diversification through land development around the airport. General Manager of Opportunity Lethbridge, Michael Kelly noted that a full draft of the business plan was ready in January 2020, however, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift and rethink of the strategy.

Kelly told Lethbridge News Now that, “an original perspective was all focused on how do we increase passenger traffic. We had recently had quite a bit of success with Air Canada and then WestJet coming in, so our numbers were climbing quite dramatically.”

“But then with COVID, we needed to pivot and ask ourselves, well we can’t just rely on passenger revenue fees and associated revenues that come in with passengers, we needed to make sure that we have a variety of revenues coming in, so we put a lot of effort – not just about how we’re going to recover and develop our passenger traffic, but also create some other revenue coming from our land development.”

The City of Lethbridge noted that when fully developed, the YQL lands could provide $10 million annually in lease revenue, as well as $10 million in tax revenue. Kelly said there’s about 900 acres of land available to work with.

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He explained that, “what we envision is we will have a distribution hub, that will feature various logistics type operations, such as warehousing, trucking, both moving cargo not just on-ground but [we can] take advantage of the airport with air cargo.”

“We have a great partner to the east of us, that being Trimac [Transportation] with their rail loading facility, so there should be lots of synergies working moving forward and creating some better spaces and opportunities for the private sector to invest in in the future.”

Kelly believes the Lethbridge Airport is “on the right track” moving forward in the next four years.

UNDER CITY MANAGEMENT

At Tuesday’s meeting, City Council voted 7-1 to keep the airport under the management of the City of Lethbridge.

The YQL (Lethbridge Airport) management team will remain as it is, with the Airport Manager reporting to the Director of Corporate and Customer Services. The approved model will stay in place until the airport reaches these key triggers:

• Two consecutive years of $500,000 net operating profit
• More than 150,000 annual passengers

Once these thresholds are met, the governance model will be reviewed by council.

In 2018, the City of Lethbridge took over ownership of the Lethbridge Airport from Lethbridge County.

READ MORE: City of Lethbridge to take over ownership of Lethbridge Airport

Additionally, as a result of the vote, the City of Lethbridge’s Airport Committee will be dissolved. The governance structure will also be reviewed every two years at the Economic Standing Policy Committee.

Lethbridge mayor Chris Spearman said that “strengthening the Lethbridge Airport has been a priority for this City Council.”

“We know YQL is vital to the economic development, economic prosperity and tourism for the City of Lethbridge and the entire region.”

Last week, the City received $583,480 from Western Economic Diversification Canada’s Regional Air Transportation Initiative. Funding will support infrastructure upgrades at the airport, with a focus on the customer experience.

READ MORE: Lethbridge Airport getting $583K for customer-focused upgrades

Prior to last week’s announcement, Lethbridge City Council invested $2.6 million, which was leveraged to secure $23 million in provincial and federal funding to help position the Lethbridge Airport for a successful post-pandemic recovery.

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